Hosea 1:7 But I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and will save them by the LORD their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword… The first three chapters are symbolic, and directed chiefly against the Ten Tribes, whom Hosea addresses as Israel and Ephraim. Hosea condemned their departure from the Almighty, as being a sort of spiritual adultery. One sign was an undue reliance upon material and temporal helps in times of emergency. Against this characteristic of a corrupt religion, and a declining national life, the text is directed. I. ALL HUMAN AND MATERIAL SUCCOURS ARE ALONE AND BY THEM SELVES INADEQUATE. In their better days the people of Israel reposed all their confidence in Jehovah. Now they had lapsed into idolatry. Their spiritual vision had by degrees narrowed itself down to merely material views of things. They lost spiritual insight, and saw only the seen. They trusted in their military strength, and in political alliance with the great powers. From the human stand point this conduct was not unreasonable. In our own age this error prevails. It is reserved to our time to systematise these views into a philosophy, which, calling itself positive, excludes from its domain the least element of the super natural. It is found that there is a constancy in the operations of nature. Law has been discovered, where it was thought that there was but fortuity. So we are bidden to turn to science, where once we turned to God. Instead of praying, we are to study, and to adjust ourselves to ever-operating laws. If we would remain prosperous as a nation, say the positivists, we must have recourse to material helps, practise political economy, reform our social administration, and push to their farthest limits the practical application of scientific principles. But all this trust to science and scientific helps against the evils and emergencies of human life, is miserably and woefully mistaken. There is no incompatibility between true science and true religion. But a mere trust in means, or secondary causes, is vain and presumptuous. The shrewdest anticipations of man are constantly disappointed. Material succours — those helps which arise out of an observation, classification, and adaptation of secondary causes merely, are by themselves utterly unworthy. II. HELP FROM GOD IS ALONE SUFFICIENT. God is the disposer of all events. At any moment this Supreme Power may, by a volition of His creative will, disappoint the cleverest calculation of the cleverest sociologist. God deigns to employ human and material agencies in the execution of His purposes; but because He works in a regular and orderly manner, we are not to think only of the mere means and instruments, and forget that Divine omnipresent agency, without which the mere instrumentality would be as the body without life, or as the machine without motive-power. It is then God, and God alone, who is worthy of trust. The means are with us, the issues are with the Lord. God can work with means, and He can also work without them. Man may calculate and scheme for results, but in vain, except as God may succeed his efforts. If we would make the best of both worlds, we must most distinctly remember that our only reliable help is to be found in the Lord, and in Him alone. III. IN ALL CASES IT IS OUR DUTY TO TRUST ONLY IN GOD. Hero we see the practical bearing of the truth enforced by the prophecy. The lesson of the text is, that we are not to trust to any use of means for the result or results which we may desire. Secondary causes are only efficient as they are so made by the informing agency of God. (D. Clark, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the LORD their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen. |
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